OTTAWA - Refugee numbers around the world are at their highest level since 1994, the United Nations refugee agency reported Tuesday in a sobering look at global displacement. More than 45.2 million people either fled their own countries or were internally displaced in 2012, compared to 42.5 million the year before, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in its annual global trends report. War remained the dominant reason for displacement — 55 per cent of all refugees came from five war-affected countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday to step down over the violent crackdown on opposition forces, and offered $10 million in fresh emergency aid for Syrian refugees. "In Syria, the violence must be stopped immediately. The Assad regime should step down and a government of the Syrian people should be established," Abe told reporters ahead of a session of the summit of Group of Eight major nations in Northern Ireland.

With no end in sight to Syria's conflict, some refugees in Jordan are offering their daughters for early marriage in the hope of securing them protection as they face growing economic pressure. Syrian refugee Abu Mohammad says he reluctantly opted to marry off his teenage daughter to a rich 40-year-old Saudi man, hoping to give her a better life and ease his family's financial hardships.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee agency is talking to Germany about resettling up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Tuesday. UNHCR was also working with other European governments to find ways to resettle some of the 1.6 million Syrians who have fled the country, a number the United Nations expects to reach 3.45 million by the end of 2013, Edwards said.